Speaker: Maria Colombo (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne).

Given a vector field in R^d, the classical Cauchy-Lipschitz theorem shows existence and uniqueness of its flow provided the vector field is sufficiently smooth; this, in turn, translates in existence and uniqueness results for the transport equation. In 1989, Di Perna and Lions proved that Sobolev regularity for vector fields, with bounded divergence and a growth assumption, is sufficient to establish existence, uniqueness and stability of a generalized notion of flow, consisting of a suitable selection among the trajectories of the associated ODE. A long-standing open question is whether the uniqueness of the regular Lagrangian flow is a corollaryof the uniqueness of the trajectory of the ODE for a.e. initial datum. In this talk we give an overview of the topic and we provide a negative answer to this question. To show this result we exploit the connection with the transport equation, based on Ambrosio’s superposition principle, and a new ill-posedness result for positive solutions of the continuity equation.

To get access to the password, please register on the website or contact one of the organizers.

The Lisbon Webinar in Analysis in Differential Equations is a joint iniciative of CAMGSD, CMAFcIO and GFM, three research centers of the University of Lisbon. It is aimed at filling the absence of face-to-face seminars and wishes to be a meeting point of mathematicians working in the field.